William Shakespeare

She could read by four-and-a-half, and recalls an early admiration for hymns by Anna Letitia Barbauld and Maria Edgeworth . Julius Cæsar, the first Shakespearean play that she saw, left a lasting impression. Later...

Taught by governesses until she was thirteen, Margaret Haig Thomas learned to read at about five. She was taught German and French, and she also learned Welsh as a child but did not retain it...

PHJ learned a lot in the library of her maternal grandfather, whose books, she says, were mostly [Henry] Irving 's rejects. She had read the entire works of Shakespeare by the age of eight...

HSW 's family encouraged her in the regular pursuits of a young, middle-class Victorian woman. From her father she inherited an enthusiasm for poetry—she especially liked Shakespeare , Coleridge , and Whitman —and she read...

EBB 's early immersion in fairy stories and popular tales was followed by a more ambitious course of reading that began around the age of seven with history, classical poetry, and some of Shakespeare 's...

Whether or not TT 's education was Puritanical (most sources about her life have no higher status than gossip) she was well read in the emergent canon of English literature, from Shakespeare and Milton through...

AL attended Highbury Hill Grammar School , where she studied the Victorians on her history syllabus and Shakespeare and the Metaphysical poets for A-level English (an exam which, she says, she nearly failed). She got...

She demonstrated an early interest in reading. Scott , Tennyson , and Barrett Browning numbered among her early favourites. Her father, however, did not allow her to read Shakespeare , as he was repelled by...

At a very young age, JR imagined that God was a book. She was so slow to read that her parents were concerned, but then suddenly found herself able to read even the longer words...

As a sixth-form student, she went on a class trip to Italy, where she was introduced to the art of the Renaissance. Shakespeare was another important discovery. Her class also took trips to the...

She enjoyed her years here much more than at her first school. It was here that she became quite fervently religious for a while, though neither of her parents shared her intense belief. The school...

After studying at RADA, NS went on the stage, where she gained experience of everything from classic roles to revues and pantomime. Her first engagement was with the Charles DoranShakespeare an Company where she...

At their fifth meeting he asked her to marry him. She was not in love. She agonised about her love for Bevil; she wrote with tears to consult Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch . He responded...

SH married Shakespearean scholar Stanley Wells on Shakespeare 's birthday at Stratford-on-Avon.

Her father, John Sadler , was a well-to-do druggist and tobacconist who came from Stratford upon Avon. His grandfather was probably at school with Shakespeare , and he himself was connected by marriage with...